For many years the appropriate treatment of the hyperglycemia associated with diabetes mellitus has been through the use of injectable insulin. This method has been most satisfactory and has indeed prolonged the lives and sustained the good health of hundreds of thousands of diabetics. The use of injectable insulin has associated with it, however, certain reservations. Since the diabetic condition is a chronic one, it requires constant and, ordinarily, daily injections of insulin. It has been the practice to permit the patient to make his own injections and thus introduce the hazards of improper measurements and non-septic injection techniques. Insulin as now available is subject to deterioration on standing, and unless properly refrigerated, will lose its potency. An additional hazard associated with the use of insulin is that in the achievement of desirably long-acting insulins, suspensions of active insulin (NPH insulin) are frequently utilized, and improper resuspension of these insulins results in more or less than the indicated dosage being administered and measured as a volumetric dose of a varying suspended insulin.
Now these objections can be overcome by using the novel compounds of our invention, i.e., 1-(.omega.-aminoalkyl)glycopyranosides and 1-deoxy analogs thereof having a 1-(.omega.-aminoalkylthio) or 1-(.omega.-aminoalkanoylamino) substituent with a pharmaceutically suitable carrier orally, intravenously, intraperitoneally and intramuscularly. The preferred method is by oral therapy using our invention in the form of tablets containing a stated quantity of the active, stable ingredient.
It is, therefore the principal object of the invention to provide a hypoglycemic composition which obviates the above-mentioned disadvantages that attend the use of insulin, and which upon oral ingestion will rapidly and effectively lower blood sugar levels of the diabetics for sustained periods.